CONDUCTIVE HIGH-TONE HEARING LOSS

To the Editor.—The article by Anderson, and Barr in the June 1971Archives(93:599-605) concerning ossicular chain discontinuity and high-frequency conductive hearing loss, was most informative. The authors state that this type of disorder, "... can, under certain conditions, imitate the audiometric pattern of a high-tone sensorineural hearing loss." However, they make no textural or graphic reference to the use of masking in the determination of bone-conduction thresholds (Fig 1 and 3). Studebaker1has suggested that, "... masking should be applied to the nontest ear whenever an apparent air-bone gap is observed in the tested ear." It would be of interest to know if the unmasked bone conduction thresholds reported by Anderson and Barr reflect the status of the ipsilateral or contralateral cochlea, especially in those cases where surgery was unsuccessful.